


A Cowboy without Peril Isn't Anything at All

by Storystuff



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Aftercare, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Praise Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 17:50:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13013013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storystuff/pseuds/Storystuff
Summary: When Napoleon is shot on a routine mission, Illya realises that losing his Cowboy is a very real possibility. But he isn't the only one having revelations...





	A Cowboy without Peril Isn't Anything at All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BosieJan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BosieJan/gifts).



> Happy Holidays! So, I feel like I didn’t manage to fulfil the rough sex part of the request ‘cos I went with the “Napoleon is hurt” thing, but I did try to fill praise kink/aftercare as best as I could! It’s also set in a jungle, as requested, but there’s not too much focus on it. It’s waaay soppier than I’d originally hoped it would be, so I’m really sorry if it doesn’t fulfil the prompt enough – fingers crossed it still meets your liking! I hope you don’t mind Napoleon’s POV either. 
> 
> Hope you have a happy holiday season and a wonderful new year!

It had been going swimmingly, in Napoleon’s opinion.

“I don’t know why you’re so worked up, Peril.”

“Shut up, it is not funny.”

Napoleon would have laughed at that, if his ribs weren’t grinding together so painfully as Illya stopped short. Napoleon’s right arm had been flung unceremoniously over the other agent’s shoulders and, with a strength that never failed to surprise the American agent, Illya had been supporting his weight for a good six kilometres of jungle. Sweat had broken out on the Russian’s forehead, the glint of it making his hairline shimmer whenever they passed beneath a gap in the trees. Napoleon wanted to comment on how attractive it was, but then remembered that his own forehead was currently caked in blood. Concussion generally made him say very, very stupid things.

“What have you stopped for? The safe house is that way.” He pointed through the trees. In all honesty, Napoleon couldn’t be sure that that was even the base’s location anymore, since he was relatively certain that Illya had spun around while Napoleon was focusing on his stupidly enticing brow. The forest around them was dense, the barest snatches of sun highlighting random spots, like museum floodlights on a surrealist painting. His head was pounding, and the dizziness made him nauseous.

“Don’t throw up,” Illya advised. Napoleon didn’t even think that Illya was looking at him, slumped as he was beneath the Russian’s too-tall eye line. He imagined that his breathing had changed. Either that or Illya had creepier talents than Napoleon gave him credit for.

“Why have we stopped?” Napoleon pressed, ignoring Illya’s comment. He couldn’t hear anything over the pounding in his ears and his thoughts were fuzzy and far away. The only pinpoint of clarity was the aching in his ribs and the blazing pain in his stomach. He tried hard not to think about that.

“Someone is after us, I heard something,” Illya said, his voice low. A shot of fear spiked through Napoleon, but he tried not to let it show on his face. He knew Illya wasn’t looking at him, but the principle was the same. There had been at least twenty men waiting at their last checkpoint and, until that point, things had truly been going quite swimmingly. Gaby was safely at HQ with Waverly, and their own mission checkpoint looked to have been totally clear. The godforsaken jungle heat and the way it made Napoleon’s hair wilt aside, things were going just swell.

It hadn’t lasted. True to form, the checkpoint had decidedly not been clear. Napoleon had been telling a perfectly witty story about his art heist in Belarus one minute, and on the ground the next. There had been no warning, no out of place sounds in the quiet creaks and moans of the trees, until the enemy had open fired on mass. The pain hadn’t even really kicked in until Napoleon had hit the ground, bullets whizzing overhead and Illya’s solid weight holding him down behind the somewhat shelter of a mound of overgrown roots.

“Stay still Cowboy.” Napoleon had scoffed at that, ignoring Illya and grabbing for his gun. His hand brushed over blood as he fumbled for his weapon, the grind of a bullet in his abdomen making him break out in a hard sweat. He flashed the other man what he hoped was a suitably dashing smile, given the situation, and was only slightly disgruntled when Illya made a tutting noise and fired three shots over the top of their cover. One of them found its target, if the howl from the other side was anything to go by.

Napoleon tried not to think about how the mud underneath him was wet with blood; too much blood to bode well. He heaved himself up, crawling sluggishly to a gap in their cover. He only noticed then that he’d hit his head on his descent, his vision dimming under more blood. Blood and sludge belonged to a much younger Napoleon. He tried to remind himself of this as he pushed his pistol through a clump of bracken, aiming with shaky vision. Blood and sludge belonged to a Napoleon who didn’t wear $600 worth of slim fitting jungle gear to a standard ops mission, a younger Napoleon who didn’t smile when bullets started to fly.

“And let you have all the fun? It’s like you don’t even know me,” Napoleon quipped. He fired his own three shots, casting Illya a gloating sidelong glance when two of them found their mark.

They’d won, of course. Or got as near to winning as one could when there were twenty very well-armed men against them and another twenty on their way. And now, if Illya was right, there were more chasing them through the jungle. THRUSH had evidently upped their recruitment drive.

Apparently the filter between his brain and his mouth had been broken by his concussion, as Napoleon felt Illya huff a laugh, readjusting his grip on Napoleon. The action made Napoleon wince.

“It seems so,” Illya agreed. The sentiment was light, the kind of banter that Napoleon had grown accustomed to in his last year or so with working with the Russian, but Illya’s tone was dark. “We must keep moving. Can you walk?” As if to spur on an answer, Illya tried to straighten Napoleon a little, hunched as he was over the bullet in his stomach. There had been no time to remove it and Napoleon wasn’t looking forward to that little procedure any time soon.

“Hey, Cowboy.” Illya urged, “Solo.” Napoleon looked up with difficulty at hearing Illya’s tone, urgent but concerned. It took everything in him not to allow his legs to simply cave beneath him. Napoleon Solo didn’t give up. He didn’t quit, and he always made it look effortless. But, damn it, his body was having a difference of opinion.

“I’m okay,” he gritted out eventually. Illya gave him a sceptical look.

“Alright, I’ll be better once I’ve had a long bath and a whiskey. Several, perhaps,” Napoleon conceded. Illya scoffed mildly and pulled Napoleon upright, moving them forward through the trees again, at a pace that Napoleon momentarily worried he wouldn’t be able to keep up with. One problem at a time, he reminded himself.

“Capitalists are so easy to comfort,” Illya muttered teasingly. Napoleon risked a glance up at him then, despite the strain it put on his already failing body. His legs were like lead, tripping over roots and falling against Illya as they moved, but he craned his neck anyway to get a good look at Illya’s face. There was something soft in his tone, the kind of low hum that Napoleon sometimes heard when Illya was speaking to Gaby, late at night when they were all sat, drinking cheap vodka and listening to slow records after a long mission. The kind of soft charm that Napoleon had never imagined the Russian would be capable of, but was somehow surprised at every time when Illya tended one of his wounds, or helped him slope back into sleep after nightmares brought him awake, screaming. There was a look on his face, a half-smile that Napoleon didn’t want to miss. Not when it could be his last time to see it.

"Going… going soft on me, Peril?” Napoleon gasped out. He was barely walking now, more like he was being dragged by Illya’s ridiculous strength towards the safe house. He couldn’t catch his breath and, while he understood that they needed to move faster than this if they wanted to live, he also wanted nothing more than to sit down, right here, and clutch his screaming ribs.

Illya didn’t answer, but Napoleon felt the Russian’s head turn to look at him. Napoleon wished he could look up to see him, just one more time.

“Peril,” Napoleon gasped. His chest was in agony. He was sure that he had multiple broken ribs. He couldn’t feel anything in his midsection anymore and, even though he was sure that was a bad sign, he was almost grateful.

“Illya…”

“Shut up Cowboy. Save your strength,” Illya growled. His voice was hard, uncompromising. Compared to his soft smile just a moment ago, he sounded like a different person. Napoleon wished he could go back to that moment, but even just living in this one was painful enough.

“If…. If I don’t… don’t quite make it... a-and I’m not saying-”

“Solo, be quiet. Safe house is close.”

“I’m trying to say that…”

“Solo, you are terrible, terrible spy. You are not shutting up and leading them right to us,” Illya snapped. Napoleon almost laughed at the absurdity of what Illya had just said but he didn’t have the energy. Although, he was still somewhat proud of being able to make Illya so mad with barely a single completed sentence. Illya’s shoulder was straining, shaking under the stress, but Napoleon tried to imagine for a moment that he’d managed to make Illya mad enough to just drop him. Maybe if he did, Illya would get out of this alive, even if he didn’t.

“Easy, Peril, I’m sure they’re not…not that close,” Napoleon grunted, “A-although you m-might move faster if you l-left me behind.” Napoleon vowed never again to underestimate the joy of being able to speak full sentences without wanting to vomit , if he got out of this alive. Trying to keep a degree of nonchalance in his voice, even now, was almost agonizingly impossible with the way his ribs were battering his lungs.

Illya was quiet for a long moment and Napoleon was sure that the other agent was planning to pretend he hadn’t heard what he’d said, until Napoleon felt a sharp, painful drag on his arm as Illya brought him to a sudden halt. Napoleon hissed his displeasure, agony leaving him breathless as it lanced down his side.

“What-”

“I said shut up Cowboy. For the last time, I am not leaving you. Obviously you are concussed, so I will pretend you don’t know you are saying stupid things, but I will correct you now. I will not be leaving you and you will not die before we reach the safe house, yes?”

Napoleon’s brain took a long time to catch up with what the other agent had said. So long that Illya had already begun dragging him through the forest once more before he completely caught up with the words. A part of him wanted to argue, to push himself from Illya’s grasp and give him a better shot at getting out of there, to make some heroic quip about letting Waverly know just how brave an agent he was. But the other part of him, the part of him that was still so selfish after all this time, wanted to live. More specifically, he wanted to see Illya’s face just one more time.

If he’d had the energy, Napoleon would have rolled his eyes at how pathetic that was. He didn’t know at what point Illya Kuryakin had gone from worst enemy, to friend, to the-only-smile-that-mattered-on-this-earth, but apparently that was the way Napoleon’s brain worked. Over the course of just a year, there wasn’t a doubt about it for Napoleon that he was in love with KGB agent Illya Kuryakin; the same agent who would smack him upside the head for being late to missions, the same agent who refused to acknowledge that Napoleon was not, perhaps, “a terrible spy”. But also the very same agent that had held Napoleon for over an hour, warming his hands in his, after Napoleon had fallen into freezing water on their mission to Poland. The same agent who’d told him that, maybe, Napoleon was something like a friend; “like Gaby”, Illya had said. Like Gaby. Gaby who so often laid on top of both their laps, sleeping, on the sofa. The two people Napoleon could honestly say had made him feel the most human he’d felt in years. The two people he was unmovably, stupidly, in love with. 

“I can see the safe house,” Illya announced suddenly. Napoleon didn’t even have the strength to acknowledge that, instead the declaration seemed to send a signal straight past his brain to his legs to relax. His feet went out from beneath him and if Illya hadn’t been holding onto him, he’d have fallen face first onto the muddy ground. He expected to hear Illya scold him, but instead he heard the other agent curse in clipped, hurried Russian before sweeping Napoleon’s legs up into a bridal carry. Unconsciousness stole away Napoleon’s ability to comment on that, but, if he’d been awake, he was sure he’d have come up with something incredibly charming to say.

 

 

 

 

The world filtered back in slowly. It took a long time, far too long for Napoleon’s liking, for him to finally be able to open his eyes, putting shapes to the thuds and distant rattles that he could vaguely hear through the daze. He blinked, trying to clear his vision but everything was fuzzy, like a camera that had been twisted out of focus.

He resigned himself to waiting, closing his eyes and taking stock. He _hurt._ There was a blazing, fiery pain in his stomach and his ribs ached like they’d be trodden on by a horse. His head, still clearing and now wrapped in itchy bandages, hurt too. Pain, however, was a good sign. It meant he was definitely still alive and that, probably, he still had all the parts of himself that he'd need to go on living.

“You are very lucky.” Napoleon strained one eye open and looked at the large, blurry figure that had spoken in his periphery. Only now that his brain was starting to catch up with his body did Napoleon realise that the thudding and staccato, almost gunshot-like, rattling was Illya forcefully repacking a threateningly large first aid kit.

Napoleon tried to raise an eyebrow at that, with mixed success. It felt like even his eyebrows hurt.

“I don’t feel lucky,” Napoleon said. He intended it to come out snappy and light, his usual go-to tone, but instead it grated out against his dry tongue. He coughed, attempting to raise himself up on an elbow to at least attempt some degree of dignity. As was often true for most things in his life, the action came back to bite him and he bit back a cry as agony flared across his stomach. He saw Illya look up sharply at him from the corner of his eye, his gaze severe and reproving.

“Stay still. You will rip your stitches,” Illya griped.

With a grimace, Napoleon fumbled a hand down to his stomach. He noted with some displeasure that his hand wouldn’t stop shaking, despite his best efforts, and he tried to ignore the fact that the shake was most definitely creeping up his arm. His fingers met bandage and he pressed lightly against it, working his way down a string of bulky stitches.

“Can’t say I think much of your haberdashery skills, Peril,” Napoleon commented, as lazily as he could manage. In truth, he was surprised Illya had managed to seal up the wound at all, considering the size of the mess that currently puckered across his stomach. Illya seemed to guess at his appreciation, despite the jest, and moved closer to the bed, carefully propping the first aid kit on the table he'd been standing at. He sat down heavily at Napoleon’s side, fixing him with an intense gaze. Suddenly, Napoleon felt oddly pinned beneath the expression, the hair along his half-bandaged chest prickling as Illya stared him down seriously. Napoleon had never known a single spy who could pull off sincerity quite like Illya could.

“You weren’t awake,” Illya commented, his voice dropping to a murmur, “So you were not moving. Made it very easy job for me.” Illya’s words were somewhat nonchalant, his inflection tinted with a soft shrug of his shoulders, but it didn’t take a CIA agent to notice the dropped timbre of his voice. He sounded as wounded as Napoleon felt.

“How long was I out for?” Napoleon asked. Illya was quiet for a long moment.

“Too long, Cowboy,” he said at last. Illya’s gaze was practically burning into Napoleon’s now. He felt destabilized, as if his eyes could water at any minute, from the heat, from the pain that was rocketing through his stomach and up his spine, from something else that he didn’t want to consider.

“You were out too long, Cowboy,” Illya repeated. Napoleon nodded and averted his gaze.

“Yes, well, good job I have you going soft on me, hm?” Napoleon knew he was trying to divert the conversation, derail it maybe from some of the intensity that was already curled up in Illya’s tense frame. He wasn’t surprised that Illya’s expression hardened immediately, his lips drawing into a hard snarl.

“Stop it. Don’t you make this a joke, it is not funny and it is not time for your smiling, Solo,” Illya snapped. The way he said Solo’s name made Napoleon grimace. Illya refused to notice, instead inching closer on the bed, right into Napoleon’s space. Napoleon risked a glance at Illya’s hand, just in case his finger was tapping. Illya’s hands were too tightly clenched for Napoleon to figure out.

“You almost died, Solo. I could not wake you up and I was in this safehouse _alone._ Then I called Waverly to block the THRUSH agent, and Gaby asked me where you were - how - how do you think Gaby would like to hear that you are dead, hm?”

“I really don’t think-”

“Do not interrupt,” Illya said sharply, “ _I_ thought you were dead, with your stupid American gun-ho foolery and walking into traps, I thought-”

“In fairness, we _both_ walked into the trap, Peril.”

“Shut. Up. I am speaking,” Illya snarled. Napoleon promptly snapped his mouth closed. He’d never admit to it, but he could barely take Illya in a fight at full health, much less injured, and the Russian looked to be itching for one.

“How do you think I’d feel, if you died, Cowboy?”

Napoleon felt his mouth drop open again, then closed it quickly. The shaken, quiet way that Illya had said that nickname, that name he’d never quite agreed to but somehow had come to love as a part of himself, _Illya’s_ part of him, made his stomach feel suddenly empty, aching in an entirely different way to the burn that was still stealing his breath. Illya looked away from Napoleon’s incredulous expression, suddenly deciding he no longer needed to fix him with such an intense stare, right at the moment that Napoleon desperately wanted to see his partner’s eyes.

There hadn’t been a confession. There wasn’t even an admission; Napoleon couldn’t honestly say that Illya had done anything more than express that he’d rather his partner didn’t die – and yet, Napoleon knew him better than that. In only a year, something of Illya had crept into him, and he was certain that something of his had crept out of himself. He had felt like he had understood Illya from the outset, knew all the things that he could use to make him tick, and the mechanisms behind the calculating eyes. But that was his job, he was a spy, he was trained to figure out what made people work. This was something else. This was knowing what Illya was about to say before he said it and, even stranger, knowing the little things he wasn’t saying. It was looking at the way Illya’s shoulders moved or his jaw clenched and knowing what he was thinking. The way he acted in unguarded moments, warm and teasing. It was the way that Illya didn’t need to confess anything, Napoleon just _knew_ it. And yet, as he always was with his partner, he was surprised by it.

The kiss, on the other hand, didn’t take him by surprise. Like someone approaching a wary animal, Illya carefully telegraphed his movements, leaning forwards slowly and allowing Napoleon to close the rest of the distance. The kiss was warm, Napoleon’s own lips cold as death and that thought drove him on to deepen it, a hand coming up to grasp at Illya’s arm. The thought that he might never have woken up to see Illya’s smile again, or even his anger, or his concern, or anything that made Illya _Illya,_ was too terrifying to put into words. He pressed his lips hard against Illya’s, trying to share some of that warmth, some of that life, and he let out a somewhat embarrassing grunt when Illya pulled back.

The sound brought him back to himself, his momentary desperation fading like a fever dream and he pulled back too, staring at Illya with as blank an expression as he could muster. He didn’t know which face to perform, whether coy would come off as obscene, if affronted would come off cruel, if fond… perhaps fond would show a little too much.

“You are thinking too much,” Illya commented dryly. Napoleon gave a hum of laughter.

“One of us has too, we both know I’m the brains here Kuryakin,” Napoleon jibed. Illya snorted, open and warm, and Napoleon couldn’t help leaning forward again, searching for some of that warmth in Illya’s lips. It was Illya that pushed forward this time, his hands running down Napoleon’s body. The gesture was almost familiar, the cursory check for wounds after a fire-fight, the securing movement that had Napoleon leaning into his partner. The rational part of his mind was babbling, trying to reason, perhaps to think about Gaby and how she loved Illya but Napoleon knew, as innately as knew exactly what Illya had confessed to, that it didn’t matter. This was _Illya._ As much a part of Napoleon now as Gaby was, the three of them almost one entity. Napoleon had previously thought that perhaps this was what being in love was like, the first time he’d really, honestly felt it, but it was more than that. It was the trust he could place in two partners to watch his back in the field, the way he knew they’d welcome him home, success or not, and sit him down, hold him despite every protestation he would obligatorily make. Three people, working, _living,_ as one. 

“Stop thinking Cowboy,” Illya interrupted his thoughts, removing his mouth to work his lips down Napoleon’s jawbone and neck. Napoleon shoved down a moan in his throat, morphing the twist of his mouth into a winning smile.

“Think I can manage that, Peril,” he gasped. He felt Illya smile against him and that somehow made him all the more turned-on, the thought that he was here, to see it once more. More importantly, to feel it.

“I thought you were dead,” he felt Illya mutter against his skin. Napoleon’s hand fluttered down the bed, seeking out Illya’s and grasping it, entwining his fingers with the Russian’s.

“I’m right here,” Napoleon assured him, “I’m right here.”

Illya fumbled momentarily with the blanket that was covering Napoleon’s stomach and legs, easing it to the side. Napoleon caught a glimpse of Illya’s expression as his eyes rested on Napoleon’s bandage, the stark white blending with his partner’s too-pale skin.

It was momentarily pained, like Illya could feel some of the fire burning across the other agent's body and Napoleon almost wouldn't be surprised if he could. There had been missions before when Illya had been hurt that Napoleon could have sworn had injured him too, even though he couldn't say what exactly it was that pained him so much. 

The expression darkened almost instantly and Napoleon noted two things. First, he wished luck and a swift death to any THRUSH agent they met in the near future. And two, _that_ of all things was what got him aroused? He tried his best to hide his blush, both mortified and thankful that Illya was too focused on kissing the space around his bandage to notice Napoleon's boxers tenting considerably more. 

To Napoleon's dismay and, frankly, utter delight, that didn't last long. With a look that was more sinful than Napoleon could give him credit for, Illya slid down the bed, straddling Napoleon's knees. 

"Very practical, putting me to bed first," Napoleon noted sarcastically. He hoped his voice didn't sound as strained as it felt. His stomach was flaring painfully but Illya didn't seem worried yet so Napoleon didn't worry either. As if reading his mind, Illya laid a hand over Napoleon's bandage and, for reasons Napoleon couldn't begin to explain, he felt a zap of lust spike through him. 

"All taken care of, Cowboy," Illya smirked and that, that was just plain unfair. Napoleon grunted, unable to keep his hips still and bucked up into Illya's touch. 

"Relax," Illya soothed. He hummed low in his throat.

“You are beautiful,” Illya said. Only his partner could address Napoleon with quite so much sincerity in bed. Napoleon blushed, a hot flush of arousal flooding through him.

“Illya-” he stammered.

“You are too beautiful to lose,” Illya said quietly. Napoleon wanted to protest the word “beautiful” but there was something so entire about it, something so complete that made Napoleon’s breath hitch. Illya brought his hand lower then, joining the other as he hooked his fingers under Napoleon's waistband and slowly, too slowly, pulled the other man's boxers down, trapping his thighs with them and, with a grateful gasp from Napoleon, freed his partner's straining cock.

"G-glad I have enough blood left to spare for down there," Napoleon joked shakily. 

Illya frowned and delivered a gentle slap to Napoleon's inner thigh.

"Not funny," Illya pouted. 

Napoleon chuckled but found himself cut off when Illya leaned down, his eyes locking onto his partner's and wrapped his lips around the head of Napoleon's cock. 

Napoleon gasped, almost crying out at the contact, bucking upwards. Illya's hands came up to squeeze his hips back down to the mattress, gently but firmly, and Napoleon could almost hear Illya's voice through that one movement. _Easy Cowboy, I have got you. Relax._

Illya's mouth slid further down Napoleon's cock, his tongue sliding languidly across the underside, pressing teasingly at a vein that ran along it. His hands were still holding Napoleon's hips, fingers stroking a staccato rhythm into his skin. His eyes hadn't left Napoleon's face, even as his partner threw his head back with a loud, low moan, his sweat-oiled hair flicking across his forehead. 

For all Napoleon knew, Illya might as well have been tapping Morse code against his nerves or rubbing it into his skin with every calloused finger that held Napoleon's hip. The expression in Illya's eyes told a spy like Napoleon everything Illya needed to say. 

 

_You almost died and I was going to have to live the rest of my life alone._

_Don't you dare leave me like that._

_Please._

 

Napoleon gave a hoarse cry, tension curling in the base of his spine. A shaky hand went down to grip Illya's hair as the other man gently suckled at Napoleon, aware that he was close. Napoleon's grip loosened, carding a soft flutter through Illya's hair, the only way to communicate when Illya's eyes were speaking more words than Napoleon currently had in his chest. 

I love you, Napoleon realised, was always inadequate when it was true. 

He gasped, hips squirming beneath Illya's firm grip, holding him steady.

"Illya-" Napoleon warned. Illya didn't release him, merely shooting Napoleon a wicked glance and swallowing deeply, his throat contracting around Napoleon's length.

Napoleon stuttered out a cry and came, his vision whiting for one long, intense moment. He could feel Illya swallow around him, the suction almost too perfect, too much. His back wanted to arch in pleasure but he felt Illya's reassuring grasp support his hips up, riding the orgasm out with him like one body. He heard Illya moan below him and, blinking spots out of his eyes, Napoleon looked down to see Illya unbuttoning the fly on his trousers. It struck Napoleon only now, his brain still reeling with pain and shock and lust, that he'd just taken part in this insanity with Illya completely dressed. The absurdity made him giggle light-headedly.

"I-I'm normally more chivalrous in bed, but I have to admit you've managed to take me by surprise," Napoleon admitted, expecting a cheeky reply from the Russian, but instead he was met with a satisfied moan. Napoleon was almost surprised at the fervour at which Illya shoved a hand into his own pants and the utterly sordid Russian curse that slipped out of his lips.

"Jesus Christ, Peril," Napoleon gasped. He winced, pushing himself onto his elbows, trying to lean down and get a hand on his partner but Illya pushed him down with a firm hand on his chest.

"No," Illya growled, low, deep and so aroused that it sounded almost feral; and _that_ was frankly never leaving Napoleon's memories for the rest of his life, "You are injured."

"Injured or not, I think I can handle it," Napoleon retorted.

"Always performing," Illya smirked. There was a fond, but almost sad look that Napoleon didn't want to talk about in Illya's eyes.

"I'm going to look after you Solo," Illya said, his voice cracking as his hand began to work around his own cock, the movement of his arm and the tantalising angle through which Napoleon could see Illya's hand working made Napoleon wish he was, first, uninjured and second, quite a few years younger. Napoleon watched Illya's face crease in pleasure and the grunt that came from his mouth as he spilled over his hand was enough to make Napoleon slip out an answering moan.

Illya somehow still managed to look controlled as he flopped down onto the bed, shuffling up so he could be laid next to his partner. Somehow the position was even more intimate and Napoleon didn't match the gaze that Illya was fixing him from his side.

"You're full of surprises, I can give you that," Napoleon said wryly, hoping to diffuse some of the attention Illya was currently focusing on him. Illya granted him the reprieve, more for his sake than any genuine amusement, and chuckled.

"Don't ruin the moment Cowboy," Illya said. Fond, a little scolding, completely unchanged and completely his Illya. Napoleon stole a glance at the man beside him, always beside him, and memorised every curve and line of the soft smile that was so rarely there.

"I stay at your side, you stay at mine, deal?" Napoleon said quietly.

"America and Russia, teaming up," Illya joked, the low rumble of contentment in his chest, "Quite the sensation, Russia will be very proud."

"Give me a couple of days to get this healed up and I'll be making America proud," Napoleon retorted with a flirtatious wink.

"I look forward to it, Cowboy."

Napoleon's hand, warm now, joined Illya's. He was sure he wouldn't be letting go for a long time yet. 


End file.
